1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and method. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a system and method for limiting the size of a local storage of a processor.
2. Description of Related Art
The Cell Broadband Engine (CBE), a multi-core processor architecture available from International Business Machines, Inc., describes a local storage that is specific to each synergistic processing unit (SPU). The main purpose of this local storage is to act as the storage space for instructions and data for a given SPU. The Cell Broadband Engine Architecture (CBEA) does not limit the local storage address to the physical size of the local storage. For addresses greater than the physical size of the local storage, the CBEA defines that the address wraps to the beginning of the physical memory. It is therefore possible that applications running on the SPU may be constructed in such a way as to be dependent upon the local storage size. This could especially be true of software that was developed for a CBE compliant processor with a smaller local storage or legacy software that was developed for a different data processing system architecture. In addition, compilers that are optimizing code to run on CBE compliant processors will also need this information in order to properly break up tasks to run on the SPUs. The CBE, however, does not specify a required size for this local storage.